Katrin Pahl: Auntie Earth: With Thomas Köck toward a pedologic of mutual agency
Saturday | June 21, 2025 | 10:15-11:00
Lounge in the University Library, Steubenstraße 6, 99423 Weimar
Abstract:
Via an analysis of Thomas Köck's plays "paradies spielen (abendland. ein abgesang)" (2017 Nationaltheater Mannheim, dir. Marie Bues) and "solastalgia (tryout /habitat)" (2022 Kunstfest Weimar / Schauspiel Frankfurt, dir. Thomas Köck), this paper inquires into the possibility of learning from soil. Inspired by Eve Kosowky Sedgwick's elaborations on the queer avunculate, Auntie Earth emerges, as distinct from the traditional figure of Mother Earth, to offer a model of living/dying and acting together beyond the patriarchal and heteronormative mold. My dialogue with Köck's plays also engages Glenn Albrecht's notion of solastalgia and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing's analysis of global late capitalism in her ethnography of naturecultures around the matsutake mushroom.